Quality Management System In Construction

This paper describes the Quality Management System (QMS) concept and its application in the construction industry. A misunderstanding among the construction players on the QMS concept has become the stumbling block for its successful implementation

Online collaborative writing: students’ perception / Mohammed Abdel Hakim Farrah

This study investigated the attitudes of an English writing class towards online collaborative learning activities. A 20-item questionnaire was used to assess the students’ attitudes towards this experience. The participants of the study consisted of 55 students studying a Writing II course. There were two sections; one control and the other is experimental. The researcher investigated whether there were significant differences in the attitudes of the students pertaining to, group (experimental vs. control), gender, grade (GPA), access to the Internet and anxiety. The results indicated that the experimental group held positive attitudes towards the online collaborative learning experience. Moreover, the results showed that there were statistically significant differences between anxious learners and the learners who do not have anxiety towards online collaborative activities. In addition, students who had regular access to the Internet had better attitudes for the online collaborative activities. However, no statistically significant differences were revealed regarding the grade of the students. This means that low achievers and advanced learners held similar attitudes towards the online experience. Finally, no statistically significant differences were shown based on gender

Knowledge sharing and professional online communities acceptance : an integrated model

This study aims to advance empirical research in the realm of the use of professional online communities for knowledge sharing. Use of these communities is likely to be influenced not only by social factors but also by cognitive and technological factors. Hence, drawing upon theoretical and empirical foundations and contextually relevant previous research, three theoretical frameworks were developed and applied, in which relational factors (trust), individual factors (knowledge/system self-efficacy), and technological factors (system quality and content quality) were integrated together with the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to examine the use of professional online communities to acquire/provide knowledge among professionals. To test these theoretical models, an online web-survey was administered to 366 members of eight professional communities in Egypt.Employing covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM), the results of this study confirmed that professional online communities have emerged as an essential channel to facilitate knowledge sharing among professionals. Performance expectancy and personal outcome expectancy were found to be the strongest determinants of professional online community use. Relational capital - trust - was found to be a significant predictor of usage behaviour. However, for members who used the community for knowledge provision, trust was found to have a stronger influence than was perceived trust on using the community for knowledge acquisition. For members who used the community for knowledge acquisition, effort expectancy and social influence revealed significant effect, in contrast to members who use the community for knowledge provision. Regarding the hypotheses common to both use behaviours, the findings demonstrated some significant differences. Content quality, for example, seemed to have a clearly stronger influence on trust than system quality in all models. Content quality showed stronger effect on trust for using professional online communities for knowledge provision than using for knowledge acquisition, while system quality was found to be a stronger predictor of trust in the use for knowledge acquisition. For effort expectancy, system quality tended to have a stronger influence than system self-efficacy in all models; however, the influence of system quality on effort expectancy tended to be more important when online communities are used for knowledge acquisition.As for moderating effects, the influence of performance expectancy on use for knowledge acquisition and the influence of personal outcome expectancy on use for knowledge provision were found to be moderated by users’ gender (stronger for men) and age (stronger for younger users), while the influence of performance expectancy on use for knowledge acquisition was found to be influenced by users’ experience (stronger for less experienced users)

Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) management systems: towards development of safety and health culture

The unsatisfactory OSH record of the construction industry has always been highlighted. It is because the OSH management system is a neglected area and a function that has not been pursued systematically in the construction industry. Safety is an important issue, but many employers do not feel it is vital to the success of companies. For a long time, the construction industry has been labeled as with poor OSH culture and performance. But a mature construction company is still able to perform well in safety area. This type of company usually set their OSH goals for the continuous improvement in overall. Understanding the concept of the OSH management system will help us to understand the application of OSH management system in Malaysia and legislation needs to follow by industry. The rules and legislation are always protecting the worker safety and ensuring healthy workplaces. The main purpose of the rules and legislation is to prevent accidents, ill health and injury at workplaces. This paper will discuss theoritical review on OSH management in construction industry towards development of safety culture

Non-linear energy search analysis of truss-type structural systems.

Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1975 .E52. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 40-07, page: . Thesis (M.A.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1975

A POTENTIAL APPLICATION OF MICROALGAE IN PRODUCED WATER TREATMENT

Produced water, deriving from petroleum industry as a result of oil production, constitutes of high concentration of pollutants, such as dissolved nitrogen, phosphorus, dissolved organic carbon, heavy metals and monocyclic aromatic compound like BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene). Thus, removal of these pollutants from produced water is essential. Many conventional treatments are currently present, which often used for the produced water treatment. Most of the time, these treatments processes are costly and these processes increase the overall cost of oil production. As an alternative solution, microscopic microalgae can be used to remove these pollutants from the produced water effluents. These microalgae can bio-remediate produced water effluents while utilizing some of these pollutants as sources of nutrients. The current study examines pollutant removal efficiency of different microalgae species from produced water effluents. After initial screening, five species of microalgae strains Monoraphidium, Chlorella, Neochloris, Scenedesmus, Dictyosphaerium were chosen for the study. Chlorella and Dictyosphaerium species show a significant amount of biomass generation within all different concentration of produced water. Although the biomass yield of Neochloris strain was low, it was able to remove a higher amount of organic carbon than other microalgae strains. Although biomass generation was significantly varied within the microalgae strains, nitrogen removal efficiency by all the strains were similar. Also, similar results were also found for most of the BTEX component. Only in the case of phosphorus and various metals, removal efficiency was better by Dictyosphaerium microalgae species. However, the variation of produced water concentration has no significant effect on the pollutants removal efficiency of microalgae strains. Thus, the results indicate that microalgae strains can grow in produced water effluents-deriving from petroleum industries and remove pollutants

TASK-BASED LEARNING IN THE TEXTBOOK OF ENGLISH FOR PALESTINE

The aim of the study is to examine the ninth grade teachers' perceptions towards task-based learning (TBL) method and analyze the tasks and activities in the textbook of English for Palestine Ninth Grade. In addition, this study aims at evaluating the appropriateness and the effectiveness of TBL in the classroom. The researcher used four methods to collect data, namely questionnaire, classroom observation, interview, and content-analysis checklist. The sample of the study consisted of 185 teachers (males females) from the government and UNRWA schools in Hebron District. The overall findings of the study revealed that the teachers perceptions towards TBL were positive and highly acceptable; they supported the effectiveness of communicative language teaching (CLT) and TBL in EFL classrooms. Then, the results of observational data showed that some teachers use new communicative methods for teaching language skills while others use the traditional ones. Meanwhile, the results of interviews indicated that the challenges of task-based learning were big-sized classes, length of material, lack of time, and lack of technological tools. The study ended with recommendations for syllabus designers, teachers, and students. It is recommended that the teaching and learning of English language skills at the Palestinian schools should be enhanced by the use of new flexible methods, such as TBL and communicative language teaching

Functional Status of Patient with Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is among the top infectious causes of death worldwide. Patients with treated TB may remain lifelong sufferers of disabling sequelae of the disease which subsequently impair their quality of life.Aims of study: The present study aimed to assess the functional status of patient with pulmonary tuberculosis and to and the relationship between the patients functional status and their Socio-demographic data which as (Residence, Gender, Age, Occupation, Socio-economic status, Duration of disease, number of previous hospitalization and Smoking). Methodology: The study is conducted in a City of Al-Najaf Al-Ashraf in Consultant Clinic for tuberculosis and Chest Diseases. Data collected on structured questionnaire planned specifically for this study, and it is consist of two parts: Part one Included Socio-demographic characteristics and clinical data, and Part two Include (5) domain related to functional status for patient with pulmonary tuberculosis.Conclusions: The study concluded that the patients living in urban residential area are more vulnerable to get pulmonary tuberculosis than those living in rural area and males also more vulnerable to get pulmonary tuberculosis than females.Recommendations: improved the role of physician and nurse to take their roles toward instruct patient toward their disease and how to dealing problems to achieve the highly quality of life and continuous follow-up for all tuberculosis patients especially those who live in urban area.Key wards: assessment, patient, pulmonary tuberculosis

Multi-function intelligent robotic in metals detection applications

Recent technologies for robotics have been offered an effective and efficient solution to safeguard workers from risks in their work environments. These risks involve radioactive, toxic, explosive and mines. In this paper, design and implement computer robot based on metal detection as well as avoiding obstacles automatically. The proposed wireless controlled robotic vehicle can be used in metal detection applications such as landmine detection, obstacles avoidance, selecting best routing without imposing human's harms and workforce aspects. The robotic wheel can sense the obstacles that positioning at ahead of its path, and also avoids the obstacles forward, left and right of its routes. The robot is controlled by using Bluetooth wireless communication to interface between the controller and the implemented robot. Furthermore, sensor IR (FC-03) for the metal detector and used ultrasonic sensor (HC-SR04) for objects or obstacles sensing. The presented controlled robotic designed for desert and dry soil that can replace the human role in avoiding obstacles and metal detection capabilities. The produced robot was useful due to it can detect metals and avoiding obstacles consecutively besides it was effective to select the best route based on the intelligent technique that adopted, the predefined metals by using an intelligent decision maker for route finder in a flat surface environment